"Not just a little bit," Mr. Francisco said. "Soaked. The guy nearly blew up his hand on the Fourth of July." But after careful scrubbing and buffing, he said, "the shoes looked almost brand-new. The guy was super happy."
The store offers a "classic clean" ($10 to $15, depending on the shoe material), a "deep clean" ($23 to $28) and, for the truly fanatical, the "purple label detail" ($65 plus), which includes a deep clean, deodorizing and a thorough going-over of the laces, insoles and lining. Standard turnaround for most jobs is three days.
The service has been limited to those willing to brave Los Angeles traffic to drive downtown. But on June 18, Mr. Markk is to o pen a pop-up shop in the Footaction store on East 14th Street in Manhattan, bringing the white-glove treatment to sneakerheads here. The shop will run through June 26.
If the Los Angeles store is any indication, business will be brisk. Mr. Markk and his technicians have so far cleaned more than 15,000 pairs of sneakers. Two more arrived at lunchtime, carried in by a young woman named Megan Warden.
While cleaning thousands of sneakers, Jason Markk and his team have created a bible of shoe care. Jonmarc Francisco, the store's sneaker technician manager, passes on wisdom about treating materials.
She stepped to the counter and was met by Justin Familara, a technician who looked over one pair, Nike Air Max 1s
Her other pair, Nike Roshes, were practically new but they were also white. "They're supercomf," Ms. Warden said. "But the stains are very obvious. That's what I get for buying white shoes."
She's tried to clean her shoes at home, she said. But pointing to the staff, she added: "They're way better at it than me. Before they were here, you just bought new sneakers."
Mr. Markk's prescient idea was to treat sneakers like the expensive, fetishized footwear they've become. If Bruno Magli oxfords are well cared for, why not Nike Airs? But the drop-off service, if not his foray into sneakers, was an afterthought, he admitted.
Mr. Markk grew up in Harbor City, a suburb of Los Angeles, playing basketball, listening to hip-hop and being the D.J. at parties. Sneakers, he said, went hand in hand with that culture.
In his 20s, while working at an ad agency, he had a revelation one night as he cleaned his Nike high-tops with a homemade concoction of warm water and mild dishwashing soap: Why wasn't there a sneaker-specific cleaner on the market?
He asked around and found that many fellow sneakerheads were also doing the homemade thing. So he decided to create a sneaker cleaning product and hired a chemist. Research and development took 10 months.
Photo Mr. Markk and his technicians have cleaned more than 15,000 pairs of sneakers. Credit Jake Michaels for The New York Times
"He would call me and say, 'I've got a new sample for you,' and I'd take it home and test it on my shoes," Mr. Markk said. "I'd take little notes, like, 'It foamed up too much.'"
He wanted a versatile product that wouldn't damage shoes and that could clean suede, pony hair, ostrich leather and any other exotic material sneaker designers use.
Once he had his winning formula, Mr. Markk quit his job and spent a summer selling kitchen knives out of a trailer in the middle of nowhere. It taught him the fundamentals of sales.
In 2007 he began marketing his cleaner, scoring instant raves from streetwear blogs like Hypebeast and collaborations with influential sneaker shops like Undefeated in Los Angeles and the now-closed Nort/Recon in New York.
His store here was intended as a retail flagship, a place to sell his bottled solution, hog-bristle brushes and other products. But the "JM Throne" (the shoeshine chair) made him realize he had an opportunity to create a pers onal-service experience. For V.I.P. customers, like DeAndre Jordan of the Los Angeles Clippers, he offers bulk sneaker home pickup.
Like Mr. Markk, his aproned technicians, who work behind a wall of shoe-filled cubbies, regard cleaning sneakers as a labor of love. Sneakerheads themselves, they can check the latest styles and handle ultra-rare models, like the pair of original 1985 Air Jordan 1s that a woman brought in. They belonged to her father, and she was having them cleaned as a gift to him.
On this day, Joe Aguilar, a staff member at the store for more than a year, was working the brush on an "iconic" pair of Jordans; instead of the more common Jumpman logo, they had the Swoosh symbol.
Photo Mr. Markk's store was intended as a retail flagship, a place to sell his bottled solution, hog-bristle brushes and other products. But once he installed the "JM Throne" — the shoeshine chair — he saw the opportunity to create a personal-service experience. Credit Jake Michaels for The New York Times
"For me to work on this, I get off on the hype of it," Mr. Aguilar said. "I want to take care of this, and I want it to look brand-new."
He added: "It's like a basketball team here. Everyone is good in their own way. It's like, yo" — he pointed to his co-worker Joseph Henderson — "this dude is the bomb at doing suede. We've got somebody who's great at doing Timberlands. Everybody's got their finesse."
Mr. Markk, the man who created the cleaner and assembled the expert crew, said his store's meticulous process reflects his customers' love for their kicks.
"It's like a car: You just don 't mess up a dude's car," Mr. Markk said. "It's respect."
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